Directs state university trustees to promulgate and enforce a sweat-free code of conduct for the licensing and purchase of apparel at colleges of state university

Summary of provisions

Section 1. The name of the act is The Ethical Business Conduct in Higher Education Act.

Section 2 provides for legislative intent.

Section 3 amends the education law by adding section 361 to require SUNY to issue rules prohibiting their campuses from affiliating with sweatshops, provides a time line for all campuses to comply, and requires campuses to include "null and void" clauses if their contractors are found to use sweatshops.

On or before January 31st, 2010 the chancellor must submit to the state university trustees a code of conduct to accomplish above. On or before September 1st, 2010, the chancellor must submit to the legislature and the governor a preliminary report of which institutions no longer affiliate with the sweatshops for their apparel and which institutions have joined the Workers Rights Consortium and the Designated Supplier Program.

Justification

60 of 64 State University of New York campuses are satisfied with taking part in human rights violations by using sweatshop labor to produce campus apparel. With the exception of the Universities at Albany and Buffalo, and the Colleges at Cortland and New Paltz, the remaining SUNY schools are beneficiaries of work product tarnished by physical abuse, excessive working hours, deplorable work conditions, and inadequate wages.

For almost 2 decades labor, religious, and student groups have made some progress towards putting an end to sweatshop labor practices. However, it is past time for the SUNY Central Administration to issue rules for all its campuses which will bring an end their relationships with sweatshops.

Rutgers University, the University of California and Washington State University are some of the state university systems around the nation that have aggressively moved to stop their campuses from signing contracts to produce campus apparel with manufacturers which use sweatshops. It is past time that the State University of NY takes this issue seriously and aggressively moves to end these abusive practices on all their campuses. In full view of their lack of action on this issue, the Legislature should no longer trust that SUNY will voluntarily tackle this problem.

Obviously SUNY has failed to follow these examples that respect human dignity or does not think the exploitation of women, children, and black and Latino workers across Our planet is an important part of the administrative responsibilities of the largest public university system in the Untied States. The State Universities of New York should be a model for ethical business conduct, both for their students and the broader public. It is past time for the SUNY Central Administration to affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium at all its campuses and end its support of sweatshops.

The apparel industry continues to operate under a paradigm of cost-cutting without respect to human consequence--the tragic results of which are the sweatshop conditions that plague the supply chains of university licensed apparel.

An example of this problem could be observed in recent University at Buffalo student protest and calls on the University at Buffalo to cut ties with the apparel manufacturer that owns the Honduras factory which the students and workers say committed a series of labor rights violations. Seven major licensing schools including the University of Miami, University of Houston, Georgetown University, Rutgers University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Duke University and the University of Washington, have all already terminated their apparel contract with Russell over the violations, and other colleges are considering similar moves.

Legislative history

New Legislation.

Fiscal implications

Not applicable.

Effective date

This bill will take effect immediately.